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Monday, March 1, 2010

P&G Corporate Branding

If you've been watching the Olympics (which a lot of us have been - through the first 7 days of the olympic games over 150 million of us tuned in at some point), you've probably noticed the P&G corporate ads featuring "Moms" of Olympics athletes with the tagline, "To their Moms, they'll always be kids". If you've been living in a cave, here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSn5Z7EC4ME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbAHHsTFe7E&feature=PlayList&p=EE694ABB4EDE192C&index=32

So, what do you think? I'm usually not a big believer in corporate advertising, especially trying to incorporate multiple brands within a spot like P&G tries to do here, but this campaign is quite interesting on numerous levels. Let's quickly evaluate it.

I like to evaluate advertising on whether it hits key objectives that in my mind, all good advertising should have.

The Bad.....
1. Product/Brand integration - How well does its the brand integrated within the spot? Is it an integral part of the ad or is it merely a signature at the end? Clearly with this campaign, it's weak. P&G signs off at the end and showcases a montage of their brands. Now arguably all brands do target "mom", but I would argue that they target mom in different ways and, on a purely functional level, the ad falls short in tying P&G brands together with the message. There is no product integration whatsoever - just a message and signature.

The Good...
2. Relevance to target - How relevent/appealing is the commercial's story line to the target? A big win here. The advertisement is clearly positioned to women, moms specifically, and does a great job at appealing to that group. The Olympics are a great venue for advertising to this target - 56% of Olympic viewers are women vs. 44% of the Super Bowl's audience being female. Of course, the Olympics also tend to be OLDER than what we would like - viewers of the Olympics are 82% more likely to be 55 and older than the general population.

3. Emotional connection - A HUGE win. This is where the commercial has stopping power and in my mind, makes up for its weakness in product/brand integration. The spot works emotionally on multiple levels. It is upbeat, encouraging, nostalgic and celebrates the importance of moms and everything they've done to get their kids to the Olympic level. Its about celebrating mom's role and influence on their children wherever their goals and dreams take them. And that makes mom feel special on many levels.

So at the end of the day, do the ads work? It really depends upon what the initial objectives were for the campaign. If the goal was to tell me how well Tide will clean my clothes or how well Crest gets one's teeth clean, clearly not. However, if the idea was to associate P&G, and P&G brands with the support that mom provides in the raising of children to be adults, I suspect that research will confirm that the campaign did its job....and more.